Out on the Embarcadero, Leo Villareal looks south toward the Bay Bridge and sees an abstract pattern of white lights, 25,000 of them. It is a mirage now, but come March he will throw the switch on "Bay Lights," an installation that will cost $8 million to put up and stay up for two years.

Villareal, a New York artist, describes the piece as a light sculpture, as opposed to a light show or light treatment. As such, there will be no blinking and no discernible message or image in the lights.

"What you will see are sequences that are orchestrated but will never repeat," he says. "It will be very subtle and elegant. You could think of it almost as music, but mapped to the visual sense."

The complex electronic display was originally intended to honor the 75th anniversary of the Bay Bridge, in 2011. But the permit process was slow, and the fundraising process was slower. Organizers are still $2.5 million short, but that is close enough to give the green light to the white light.

Adjusting brightness levels

Over the next several months, electricians in harnesses will be climbing the suspension cables during the midnight hours to affix the LED lights to the vertical suspender cables that connect to the bridge deck. Each bulb will be adjusted to a level of brightness ranging from zero to 255.

Villareal, 45, will direct the installation via laptop, while stationed on a boat, on Treasure Island or on the second-floor deck of Waterbar restaurant on the Embarcadero.

"I'm using software as a primary material," he says. "There's a long process of trying things, and there is a lot of randomness and discovery in that process, as I come to resolution on what the piece will be."

This project has nothing to do with the construction of the new span on the Oakland end of the bridge. "Bay Lights" will only be installed on the 1.5-mile suspension bridge between Treasure Island and San Francisco. The LED lights will complement the permanent necklace that has draped the suspension cables since the bridge's 50th anniversary in 1986.

"Bay Lights" will be visible only from the waterfront north of the bridge, or from a boat on the bay. It will operate between dusk and 2 a.m. nightly and will not be visible from the bridge deck, so as not to distract motorists.

A nonprofit organization, Illuminate the Arts, has been established specifically for the project, with a six-member board of directors. A staff of three worked for a year to earn a transportation art permit from Caltrans, which owns and operates the bridge.

A light goes on

That process was smoothed by Ben Davis of Words Pictures Ideas, a communications firm that does work for Caltrans. Davis had a vested interest, because "Bay Lights" was his idea in the first place, two years ago this month.

"I was sitting at the Ferry Building looking at the span and thinking that when it first opened it had its moment and since then it has lived in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge," Davis recalls. "I was trying to think of ways to have the Bay Bridge shine again. Then it hit me. Instead of just being a bridge, it could be a canvas."

He texted this concept to Dorka Keehn, a conceptual artist who happened to be at a Villareal retrospective at the San Jose Museum of Art the moment she received the text. She texted back a photo of a Villareal light sculpture, and that's all it took.

Villareal's best-known project is "Multiverse," which consists of 41,000 LED lights in the tunnel that connects two wings of the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Intended to be a one-year project, it has been up for four years now and has been made permanent.

Twenty million people have seen it, and the estimate for "Bay Lights" is many times that if you consider that it will be visible from the Golden Gate Bridge. It will add a sophisticated dimension to the hoopla on the bay during the America's Cup next summer.

'Very pure and clean'

Keehn, a member of the San Francisco Arts Commission who is chief fundraiser for "Bay Lights," predicts that the $8 million investment will return $97 million to the local economy over its two-year run. That sales pitch has persuaded 50 donors to date, topped by an anonymous grant of $3.5 million. The electricity bill is expected to be $11,000 per year, privately funded.

"It is not going to be overwhelming in any way," Villareal promises. "It will be very pure and clean. Undulating. Not jarring."